What does General Motors have in common with the Great Chicago Fire of 1871?

This, uh, burning question was answered by General Motors North America president Mark Reuss this morning in his keynote speech to attendees of the 2010 Chicago auto show media preview, drawing a parallel between the famous Windy City fire and the renaissance of his own company. Although Chicagoans may not have perceived it quite this way in the aftermath of Mrs. O’Leary’s blaze, Reuss portrayed the 1871 fire and GM’s 2009 implosion as positive events in disaster clothing.

“In 1871, the people of Chicago took advantage of the fire to rebuild a new city that was better than the one it replaced,” he said. “And at GM, we have an opportunity to build an entirely new company from scratch. I think it’s a very exciting opportunity.” Reuss went on to a number of assertions related to GM’s revitalization that were predictable. A sample: “We intend to design, build, and sell the world’s best vehicles.”

But there were a couple interesting subtexts. For one, Reuss renewed GM’s intent to pay off its government bailout loans, in the U.S. and Canada, “by June.” For another, he emphasized GM’s increasing use of social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter to improve customer satisfaction, and cited his own personal involvement in solving a customer problem. “Of course, I’m not the only person at GM who’s doing this,” he added.

The follow-up Q&A session produced inevitable queries about future product, and Reuss surprised some in the group by actually answering one of them, albeit it concerned a car we already know is coming: the convertible version of the Chevy Camaro. “We don’t usually talk about future product,” Reuss said, echoing time-honored GM doctrine, “but I think a Camaro convertible would be attractive to our dealers.”

He also tiptoed carefully around the inevitable question about Toyota’s precipitous fall from grace. “I don’t think it’s a good thing for the industry,” he said,“but it may be an opportunity for GM to be considered by some folks who might not have considered us before.”